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Gold Prices Fall on Europe's Inaction (Update 1)

NEW YORK (
TheStreet) --
Gold prices
sank Thursday as hopes for a Spanish bailout request continued to fade during a summit of European leaders.

Gold for December delivery dipped $8.30 to close at $1,744.70 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The
gold price
traded as high as $1,753.40 and as low as $1,739 an ounce, while the spot price was falling $6.70, according to Kitco's gold index.

"Yesterday the dollar index was getting crushed, it was down 0.5%, gold couldn't even rally. So, I think the gold market has caught flu at the moment," said Phil Streible, senior commodities broker at RJO Futures. "It looks like
quantitative easing
isn't going to last as long in the U.S., China has had some better data ... Spain didn't get downgraded anymore, and it's kind of stagnant over there."

Silver prices
for December delivery shed 36 cents to settle at $32.87 an ounce, while the
U.S. dollar index
was adding 0.15% to $79.20.

Jobless claims jumped 46,000 for the week of Oct. 13 after seasonal adjustments from California offset the prior week's surprise revised 27,000 claims drop. The
Federal Reserve has reiterated that it's open-ended, mortgage-backed securities purchase program would end when the labor market and economy significantly improved and had held those gains for a meaningful period.

China posted a 7.4% year-over-year increase in third-quarter gross domestic product, which was what economists had predicted, according to Econoday. Further, industrial production and retail sales were better than expected. The good news from China suggested that more easing from its central bank wouldn't be an immediate priority.

European leaders were set to attend a two-day summit in Brussels, but uncertainty if Spain would request a bailout and the economic fate of Greece left investors uncertain that the meeting would produce any meaningful results.

"We await the deliberations of the leaders of Europe,"
said Paul Donovan, global economist at UBS. "With power concentrated into the hands of a very small number of people, there can be no informed opinion and little informed speculation on the outcome. With another summit in eight weeks, today may be about preparation."

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